From: Allan Bell
Subject: Re: SPI Compendium
>After the Holocaust
>Redmond Simsonsen
>Modern 1977 Power Politics, Boxed
>Strat 190 km 400 Counters
One of my favorite games. Our first PBEM game is nearly finished (only
took 6+ months - glad i don't play all my games that way). As Alan
Poulter points out we are all heading for a loss. The only question now
is who will be the biggest loser.
I'm GM'ing another ATH with slightly different victory conditions which I
think will increase the interaction between players. ATH can be a four
player solitaire game at times. The problem is that the victory
conditions encourage you to improve the lot of your people rather than
expand the area under your control. I never knew any petty dictators who
did it that way.
The new victory conditions reward you for having the largest economy and
the easiest way to do that is to expand your territory. Eventually all
the free land should be taken and then the fun really begins.
ATH is reasonably complex. The rules always seemed clear to me but that
was before I played PBEM. Then I realised how I should have been playing
it all these years.
David A. Vandenbroucke wrote:
> From a gaming point of view, a
>major problem is that war is so difficult and expensive that there's a
>tendancy to turn the game into multiple solitaire.
Warfare can be the most fun part of this game but the economies are too
small early in the game. With a scenario setup that gives everyone a
bigger economy, warfare can be a hoot. It means you have to choose
between winning the war and not destroying your economy.
After all, WWII was in the end an economic war. Once the US economy
cranked up there was no way the Germans could out produce it. ATH allows
you to model that to a degree.
ATH is like napoleonics. It appeals to a certain type. It is another
game that it is hard to find ftf players because of the steep initial
learning curve and the amount of arithmetic involved. But it seems to
lend itself to PBEM gaming which adds another angle to the game.
Allan